


i learned what love meant

by LiveLaughLovex



Series: our definition of perfect [7]
Category: Blue Bloods (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, Gen, Post Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 21:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17968358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: Flynn Joseph Reagan made his way into the world at ten-forty-six on a Sunday night. In that moment, his parents' lives were forever changed in the best way imaginable.





	i learned what love meant

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song "Life" by Sleeping at Last. The line it refers to is this one: As she drew her first breath, I learned what love meant.

The contractions began just after they left mass. Eddie didn’t tell Jamie about them immediately, which, in hindsight, probably wasn’t the best decision. In her defense, she didn’t think they were real contractions. She assumed they were just like the others, the false labor pains she’d been having for the better part of the past two months. It turned out they weren’t, of course. She figured that out in a _real_ interesting way.

“Hey, Jamie,” she called shakily from the bathroom, holding tight to the edge of the counter as another contraction hit. “I think you might need to call your sister, tell her we’re going to have to relocate Sunday dinner this week.”

“Okay,” Jamie agreed slowly, reaching into the pocket of his slacks for his phone and speed-dialing number six. He walked down the hallway as he waited for Erin to answer, coming to a stop just outside the bathroom door. “Why?”

“Because we’re going to the hospital,” Eddie explained hurriedly, pushing the door open and jumping slightly when she almost ran into her husband’s chest. “Sorry. The bags are – they’re in the closet, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jamie confirmed just as his sister picked up. “Erin, I’m going to have to call you back. Yeah, everything’s fine. I’ll just – right back, okay? Yeah. All right. Bye.” He then followed his wife into the bedroom. “Hey, honey?”

“Yeah?” Eddie replied distractedly, settling onto the bed and slipping into the flats she’d grabbed from her closet moments before. Wearing heels to church was one thing. There was no way she was going to continue enduring that agony as she went through labor, too.

“Why are we going to the hospital? Do we have an appointment at –” Jamie glanced at his watch. “ – six o’clock on a Sunday night that you somehow forgot to tell me about?”

“No. Well, yes. Sort of. Uh, my water broke,” Eddie explained. “Just now, in the bathroom. So, you know, we need to get going, because I refuse to give birth to this baby in the backseat of a Mustang. Labor’s already bad enough on its own.”

“Your water broke in the bathroom?” Jamie repeated, glancing over at the room in question. “With no warning?”

“Not exactly,” Eddie sighed, brushing a strand of hair away from her face and glancing up guiltily. “I’ve been having contractions since mass ended.”

Jamie drew in a sharp breath at that, his eyes drifting shut and then opening slowly. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I wasn’t sure at first,” Eddie informed him defensively. “I still wasn’t. Well, up until the whole bathroom incident.” She sighed. “I didn’t want to worry anyone if it turned out to be nothing, that’s all.”

“We’re cops in New York City,” Jamie deadpanned, helping her up and into her lightweight jacket. “Worrying is something we’ve been doing most of our lives. We’re not going to do it less when you’re pregnant, no matter how hard you try.” He fixed the collar of her jacket, then shook his head fondly and pressed a firm kiss to her forehead. “You’ve really got to get used to people taking care of you, babe.”

“Hey, a nine-pound kid is about to tear his way out of my body,” Eddie reminded him as he left her side to grab the hospital and overnight bags from the closet. “People who are willing to wait on me hand and foot will be appreciated after that happens, believe me.” She winced as a contraction hit, reaching for his hand as he attempted to make his way past. “Sorry.”

“No problem,” Jamie assured her. “They getting closer together?”

“Yeah,” Eddie admitted softly, drawing in a cleansing breath as the last of the pain slowly left her body. “About seven minutes apart now.”

“Okay,” Jamie murmured, trying and failing to prevent a bit of his own panic from seeping into his tone. “We’ll call the family from the car, yeah? That’s what God invented Bluetooth for. We should get going, before the pains get worse or closer together.”

Eddie laid her forehead against his shoulder for a moment. “Jamie, we’re having a baby today,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” Jamie agreed, pressing a kiss to her hair. “We are.”

-o-o-o-o-

 

“The kid _really_ didn’t want to miss this week’s Sunday dinner, huh?” Danny commented as he made his way into the room in the Maternity Ward that Eddie had been assigned to, Sean trailing closely behind him. “Can’t really say I blame him. Dad was planning to grill steaks.”

“Mm,” Eddie murmured. “Let’s not talk about food. I’ve been starving for the past six hours, and apparently I’m not allowed to eat again until this one,” she gestured to her stomach, “chooses to make his grand entrance. Plus, the pain is starting to take away my appetite.” She held up her hand before Danny could even attempt to comment. “Don’t say it, Daniel, I swear.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Danny protested, slightly offended by the insinuation. “I know better than to piss off a pregnant woman, thank you very much. I don’t want you to start throwing things at me next time the pain hits.”

“She’s got an epidural,” Jamie informed his brother softly, his fingers squeezing his wife’s. “The worst of the pain is past her for now. I hope. It was brutal there for a while.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking we’ll go ahead and schedule caesareans for the rest of them.” Eddie chomped down on an ice chip after she finished speaking. “There are people in the world that’ve gone through this a dozen times. I know I run into gunfire way too frequently, but I’m telling you right now that those women are a thousand times braver than I will ever be.”

“That’s impressive. You’re already being a whole hell of a lot braver than I would be,” Danny admitted. “Sorry, a whole heck of a lot braver than I would be,” he amended when he caught sight of the pointed look his brother shot in his direction. “The kid’s not even here yet, little brother, I don’t think he’ll remember much of this conversation.”

Jamie shook his head, then refocused his attention on his wife. “He’s right, you know. You’re doing a great job, sweetheart.”

“Mm,” Eddie murmured, nodding tiredly. “You think I can hold this over him when he starts acting like a brat in high school?”

“No expiration date on how long you can use labor pains as a guilt trip,” Danny assured her, glancing over his shoulder just as Erin and Nicky made their way into the room. “What took the two of you so long?”

Erin glared briefly at her brother. “We were on the other side of the city when Jamie called, and traffic was insane. How’s everything going? Has the doctor come in to check on you yet, Eddie?”

Eddie nodded affirmatively. “She left just before Danny and Sean got here. Said that, if things keep going at this rate, we’ll have a baby by midnight.”

“Wow.” Erin blinked once. “Well, I called Dad right after Jamie called me. He and Gramps were packing up the food and putting it away, and then they were on their way, so they should be here any minute.”

“Good.” Eddie drew in a deep breath and squeezed Jamie’s hand a little tighter. “I just want you all to know that, if this epidural wears off before the kid gets here, nothing I say to you should be taken personally.”

“Noted,” Erin replied wryly, coming to stand by her brother’s shoulder. “Do you need anything? What about your family, have you told them yet? Because I can make some calls for you…”

“I was kind of hoping to hold off on that one until after the kid finished college,” Eddie muttered, smirking at Erin when she simply raised a disapproving brow. “Jamie already called my mother. She’s in Paris with some guy named Alexandre, won’t be back for at least a month. I didn’t ask many questions after that mental image started haunting me.”

Danny, who’d met Lena Janko at the wedding a year earlier, visibly shuddered. “Great. Now I have that mental image, too.”

“Good,” Eddie replied cheerfully. “Now we can suffer together. Can someone hand me that cup of ice chips? I think my hands have officially stopped working.”

 

-o-o-o-o-

 

“You know how that epidural was supposed to last until this was over?” Eddie groaned, her hand clutching tighter to Jamie’s as another contraction hit at around ten o’clock that night. “I think that anesthesiologist might’ve been lying to make me feel better.”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie murmured, using his free hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead with a damp cloth. “You want me to go get the doctor, ask if there’s anything she can do?”

Eddie shook her head, drawing in a sharp breath. “No. But you should go get her, now, because this baby’s coming.”

“What?” Jamie asked, placed in a slight state of shock by the sudden turn of events.

“Jamie, unless you want to deliver this kid yourself, you should go get Dr. Callahan,” Eddie repeated exasperatedly. “Now.”

Jamie did as told, practically dashing from the room and returning less than a minute later with the dark-haired doctor trailing closely behind.

Dr. Callahan flashed her patient a comforting smile as she suited up for the delivery. “I told you that you’d have a baby before midnight, now didn’t I?”

“You left out the part where it’d hurt so much,” Eddie laughed tiredly, wincing when another contraction hit.

“Well, if we told everyone about this part of it, we’d all be out of jobs, yeah?” Callahan quickly checked Eddie’s progress. “Well, Mama, you were right. You’re fully dilated. You ready to hold that little boy of yours?”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathed, reaching for her husband’s hand. “Jamie.”

“I’m right here, Ed,” he assured her with a kiss to the forehead. “You can do this, babe, all right? You’re the most badass woman I’ve ever known; you’ve got this one in the bag.”

“Maybe save the pep talks for when I start cursing your name,” Eddie suggested with a lopsided smile.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Jamie agreed, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “Great idea. You’re doing great, honey.”

“Yeah,” Eddie sighed, smiling sleepily up at him. “Let’s have a baby.”

Thirty-two minutes later, at ten-forty-six that evening, they did just that.

-o-o-o-o-

 

“You should go tell your family,” Eddie murmured about thirty minutes after Flynn’s arrival, shifting the sleeping boy in her arms so that he rested more comfortably against her. “They’re going to get impatient soon enough, and we don’t want Danny traumatizing the nurses.”

“Yeah,” Jamie sighed, making no move to do as she’d suggested. Instead, his focus remained on his son, the little boy he’d not known even an hour earlier and yet already loved so much. He’d always thought his father was joking about that part of parenthood. Turned out it’d been the truth all along. He just hadn’t seen it as such until that was a moment he’d experienced himself.

“Jameson Reagan, go tell your family you’re a father,” Eddie sighed, shaking her head with an amused smile as she glanced up at him. “He’s still going to be here when you get back. Promise.”

“I could send them a text,” Jamie suggested, exhaling loudly when his wife simply shot him an unimpressed glare. “All right, all right. I’m going. They’re going to want to meet him, though. You up for visitors?”

“Of course,” Eddie replied, looking down at Flynn when he began fussing softly. “You’re okay, honey,” she murmured, running a finger down his plump little cheek. “It’s okay.” She glanced back up at Jamie to see him frozen, still several steps from the door. “They’re down the hall. It’ll take you five minutes, max. He’ll be fine for that long,” she promised.

“All right,” Jamie sighed, finally walking through the door and then closing it behind him. He hated being absent the very second that click echoed through the hall.

It didn’t take him long to hunt down his family. They were all half-asleep in the waiting room, hunched into the uncomfortable-looking chairs the space was furnished with. Nicky was still awake enough to notice her uncle’s appearance, however, and she quickly brought it to the attention of everyone else. Within ten seconds, Jamie was completely surrounded by all of them.

Jamie drew in a deep breath and then smiled. “He’s here. They’re both doing good,” he assured them all. “And Eddie and I, we’d really like you to come in and meet him. I think he’s been waiting long enough to put faces to voices, yeah?”

“What’s his name?” Nicky asked curiously, obviously taking one for the team by being the one to verbalize the question they’d all been wanting to ask from the moment they’d learned it was a boy.

“Sorry, Nick,” Jamie smiled apologetically. “Eddie wants to be in on revealing that secret, so you’ll have to wait just a little longer. Come on.”

“You’ve been keeping it a secret for almost six months now,” Erin complained, following after the rest of them all the same.

“Then it’s no problem to wait the minute it takes to get to the room,” Henry informed his granddaughter sternly. “This is Edit’s moment as much as it is your brother’s.”

Erin sighed at that but said no more.

Eddie glanced up when the door opened, smiling tiredly at the sight of her husband and his family filing into the room. “Hey. He just woke up a few seconds ago. I think he figured out he was about to meet some pretty important people.”

Any exasperation Erin felt over the name debacle vanished the moment she set eyes on her youngest nephew. “Oh, look at him,” she whispered, moving closer to the bed to get a better look at his tiny facial features. “He’s beautiful.”

“He’s pretty great,” Danny agreed, leaning over to press a kiss to his sister-in-law’s cheek. “You did a damn good job, kid.” He winced when he caught sight of the pointed glares being shot in his direction by both his brother and father. “I will work on that, I swear. Still, though, you’re a Rockstar, Janko.”

“Thanks, Danny,” Eddie murmured, smiling up at the man she’d long since come to see as her own big brother. “We think he’s pretty great, too. Even if he did decide to take so long to finally make his appearance.”

“Ah, he’s a Reagan,” Henry excused with a wide smile. “He’ll show up when he wants, where he wants, and still somehow find a way to convince you he got there on time.”

“Well, that bodes well for his teenage years,” Eddie murmured, pressing a kiss against her son’s forehead and then glancing up at her husband. “You want to take him? I’m still shaking.”

“Yeah,” Jamie agreed immediately, lifting the boy carefully from his mother’s arms and adjusting him in his own. He then glanced over at his father. “You want to hold him, Dad?”

“Of course,” Frank answered, smiling down at his youngest grandson the moment Flynn was placed in the cradle of his arms.  “He looks like you did,” the police commissioner informed his son. “You were born with a headful of dark hair like this, too. Your mom was shocked when it all started turning blond about six months in.”

Jamie laughed quietly at that, then squeezed his wife’s hand. “While we have you all here – and before some of you pass out,” he tacked on with a pointed look at his teenaged nephew, “– we wanted you to know his name.”

“Well?” Nicky asked expectantly, glancing back between the two of them. “What is it?”

“We named him Flynn,” Eddie informed them all, smiling tiredly up at her husband when he squeezed her hand lightly. “Flynn Joseph Reagan.”

Frank glanced up from his grandson at the sound of his middle son’s name. “Your brother would be very proud of the both of you,” he said seriously, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “He would’ve been here with bells on the second he found out you were in labor, wouldn’t have left until they forced him out the door.”

“I tried to take on the role myself, but Dad wouldn’t let me bring bells into a hospital and the nurses are too scary for me to want to make them _force_ me to do anything,” Danny told them both apologetically.

Eddie laughed quietly at that. “Don’t worry about it, Danny. There’s always next time.”

“Yes, and next time, it’ll be _me_ telling you not to be an idiot,” Erin informed her brother. “Take that burden off Dad’s shoulder for a day or two, at least.” She moved closer to her father to get a better glimpse at her newborn nephew. “He’s still ridiculously cute, no matter what angle you see him from.” She smiled over at Jamie and Eddie, her eyes glazed over with the tears they’d all been expecting from her. In her defense, it was the first time she had become an aunt in over a decade. Such an occasion warranted tears. “Welcome to the family, Flynn. We’re all very glad to have you with us.”

“Yes,” Henry agreed. “Welcome to the family, Flynn. May the Lord keep you in His hand and never close His fist too tight.”

Erin smiled at the familiar Irish blessing. There were a lot of traditions that’d followed the Reagans across the pond, but this might very well be her favorite. “May joy and peace surround you,” she added on herself.

“May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live,” Danny murmured.

Jamie stared over at his son. “May God be with you and bless you. May you see your children’s children. May you be poor in misfortunes and rich in blessings. May you know nothing but happiness from this day forward.”

“And, most importantly,” Frank added quietly, “May the roof above us never fall in. And may the friends gathered below it never fall out.”

Henry was the first to speak. “Amen.”

“Amen." 

**Author's Note:**

> I actually started crying writing the blessings at the end of this, which tells you how well I'm going to react if a scene even remotely similar to this one ever actually plays out onscreen. The blessings shown here and more can be found on emerald-heritage. The name of the article is "9 Irish Blessings We Love." I chose my favorite - obviously - but the Irish have a way with words that's absolutely beautiful, so I'd highly recommend checking them all out.


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